Just Because It’s Not There Doesn’t Mean It’s Stolen

Did you notice some political signs missing around town Friday morning? If you did, there’s an explanation. There was an explanation all along that most people probably took for granted, but then a local blogger offered another explanation, then the more realistic explanation came back around. Given how it’s been explained twice already, who knows how it will be explained in the future?

“Fake news” is a big keyword on the national scene lately, but in a lot of cases, it can be fake news itself. On the local level lately, we seem to find more wrong news, and opinion masquerading as news, wrapped up in the name of journalism. The Bee hates to see journalism abused, and also hates to see citizens misled. Almost exclusively the wrong news and misleading revolves around selling town property, but if we aren’t careful it can spread to more topics the town is dealing with.

Take the following story, for example. It’s not so much intentionally misleading the reader with something that’s not true, as much as it is just trying too hard to connect things that don’t connect, and to lead the reader to a conclusion the author has reached on another topic (selling town property), and attaching every step to that conclusion which really doesn’t have anything to do with the story (it’s about missing signs). And so a lot of it ends up being wrong. The author got a new piece of information (there are missing signs), attached it to their previous conclusions about certain people (three commissioners are in cahoots and do not like ‘scrutiny’ and will do anything to protect whatever the author imagines), and ran with it, head down and blindly determined, into places it shouldn’t have gone. It appeared on a local blog Friday afternoon.
Initially it had the title “Political signs stolen.” “Stolen” is still in the URL, which if you look it up will lead to the edited version quoted below. There are many articles like this floating around lately. If you’ve come across them you’ve seen them. Don’t seek them out, though. They end up being a colossal waste of time. Or maybe they make your blood boil and your mind seethe with rage. If you like that, go for it, but that is also a waste. The Bee only offers this as evidence of wrong news and how it comes about, in hopes we can all avoid it. This is by no means a recommendation.

The original text:

This afternoon a good portion of the political signs put oup by Hope Mills Citizens for Change(HMCFC), and paid for by Alex Warner, were stolen. The signs urge the community to vote no on a 4-year referendum.
Commissioner Mitchell called the Board of Elections Wednesday and complained on social media that the signs were ‘misleading’ because they say ‘for this board’ at the bottom. But HMCFC leader Grilley Mitchell spoke with the Board of Elections later that day and was assured the signs were allowed. Grilley emphasized ‘for this board’ is a reference to the disappointment many in the community feel towards this board and their lack of team spirit. Their inability to work together for any length of time inspired the committee to form.
The police have been notified and at least three of the locations where signs were stolen have video surveillance pointing directly at where the signs were. Once the police go through the video they should be able to identify the thief. It’s against the law to remove political signs and they’re considered private property.
The theft itself is a huge sign to the community. Whether it was the three board members who seem to be at odds with the rest of the community, or their supporters, the message is the same: these commissioners can’t stand up to the scrutiny.
Most of the missing signs were outside of Commissioners Larson, Mitchell, and Legge’s neighborhoods.

That’s the original article. The author claims that the signs were stolen. That’s mildly newsworthy, because it happens almost every election lately. People do not have any respect for other people’s property, even if it’s temporary signage.

Later in the afternoon, it came to light that the signs weren’t actually stolen. They were removed by town employees because they were in the right of way. That also happens almost every election lately, because candidates and volunteers do not follow all the rules for putting their signs on town property.
So the blogger edited the story, a little bit. The changes are mostly noted in bold below:

The edited text:

This afternoon a good portion of the political signs put up by Hope Mills Citizens for Change(HMCFC), and paid for by Alex Warner, were taken. The signs urge the community to vote no on a 4-year referendum.
Commissioner Mitchell called the Board of Elections Wednesday and complained on social media that the signs were ‘misleading’ because they say ‘for this board’ at the bottom. But HMCFC leader Grilley Mitchell spoke with the Board of Elections later that day and was assured the signs were allowed. Grilley emphasized ‘for this board’ is a reference to the disappointment many in the community feel towards this board and their lack of team spirit. Their inability to work together for any length of time inspired the committee to form.
The police have been notified and at least three of the locations where signs are missing have video surveillance pointing directly at where the signs were. Once the police go through the video they should be able to identify who took them. It’s against the law to remove political signs [deleted “and they are considered private property”].*Edit
An employee from town collected the signs. Grilley Mitchell spoke with her late this evening and is meeting with her in the morning to retrieve the signs. The employee said the signs violated the town ordinance in that they were within 15 feet of the right of way. However, that isn’t the protocol according to the town ordinance…
Temporary sign; failure to comply. If the Chief Building Inspector shall find that
any temporary sign as authorized by this section, is in violation of this section, the Chief
Building Inspector, or the inspector’s designee, shall give written notice of such violation
to the owner of the sign. If, upon receipt of same notice, the owner of such sign fails to
remove or alter the sign so as to comply with the required standards within ten days of
said notice, such sign may be removed by the Chief Building Inspector, or the
inspector’s designee, at the expense of the owner of the sign. The Chief Building
Inspector may cause any sign or other advertising structure which creates an immediate
risk of peril to persons or property to be promptly removed.[Note: edited text fails to mention the deletion of the original closing paragraph as follows:
The theft itself is a huge sign to the community. Whether it was the three board members who seem to be at odds with the rest of the community, or their supporters, the message is the same: these commissioners can’t stand up to the scrutiny.
Most of the missing signs were outside of Commissioners Larson, Mitchell, and Legge’s neighborhoods.

From a journalism perspective, the story completely misses the point because it wants to make other points (which it makes in the last paragraph, before it was deleted later). The blogger started out with a basic fact [“signs are missing”] and then built a whole article around it. In the span of a few hours after their going missing, with zero evidence, the blogger determined the signs were “stolen” and published this article about the “theft” and implicated three commissioners, with zero evidence. Then in a few more hours, when it was clear the signs were “removed by town employees” “stolen” was changed to “taken” and the original article was edited in a couple of other ways.

The blogger deleted a phrase about the signs being private property, which is inconsequential really, except for accuracy’s sake.

The blogger added a block of text from the town sign ordinances to refute the protocol the town followed.

This is kind of picayune, because it’s essentially the same protocol that’s been followed the last few elections. The town removes signs in some of the right-of-ways and other unallowed places, no matter whose they are. It leaves many others. The quoted text says they have to give 10 days notice, and maybe that’s true, maybe that’s not, depending on where the sign was placed and other factors. It’s not even clear if this ordinance would apply to those signs depending on where they came from, since there are also more specific political sign ordinances, so it might be wrong news too. We’ll leave it at the benefit of the doubt either way, because so far it’s a small thing among many larger things.
Here is a big thing, journalistically, in the edit:

the blogger removed a whole paragraph, including a sentence about the “theft” being a sign to the community that board members are at odds with everyone else, and that they can’t stand up to scrutiny.

It’s probably fine to remove it, because it’s no longer pertinent as “news.” The initial wrong charges of “theft” can’t apply, and it’s no longer a question of the commissioners trying to evade “scrutiny” from campaign signs. Then the blogger removed another sentence implying that three specific board members might have been somehow involved in the theft, because they happened near their neighborhoods. It’s also probably fine to remove that, since it turned out to not have mattered because it wasn’t “theft.” However, most journalists would probably consider it profoundly unethical to completely delete an implication like the one specifically naming three people, from the original, and not even mention you deleted it in any way, shape, or form in the edited version.

The saddest part is that the whole thing could have been avoided. The blogger didn’t wait for more information, or ask around for more information, before stringing some factoids together and filling in blanks based on their own opinions about other things. The initial article was written so hastily and impetuously, as are many lately. The whole paragraph that was removed should probably have never been included in the first place, because it was gratuitous implications with zero basis in fact. The last deleted paragraph was just aspersions for the sake of aspersions.
But by the same token, if you remove what has zero basis in fact, the whole original article shouldn’t have been written in the first place.

But that’s what journalism has become in a lot of sources these days. It’s okay to run with something if you believe it, or if it will get clicks, or if it backs up something else you’ve been saying all along. You don’t need to review your conclusions every now and then, you just need to keep believing, head down, and keep moving until others believe too.
You don’t need much proof, just the words of a couple of sources. Maybe one if the source is high enough or close enough to a situation. It doesn’t matter what reality is, as long as you believe it, it needs to be published, and it needs to be published right now!
As a result, we’ve got what amounts to fake news outlets sharing fake news in the name of “journalism.” And locally we’ve got wrong news outlets spreading facts ridiculously thin by connecting them with opinions and implications.

Before you could get too far into the “news,” a potential missing signs story becomes a definite stolen sign story, and three commissioners are implicated in the process to back up the conclusion from months ago about topics which are wholly unrelated to these signs. And an automatic, rashly-constructed story has to be edited (sloppily).

For a minute there, the blogger made the claim that three commissioners can’t stand scrutiny, so they stole signs, especially near their neighborhoods. If the town had removed these signs a couple of weeks ago, there would be four commissioners under “scrutiny” here, because a couple of weeks ago, one of the commissioners changed his mind on the topic of selling town property, so he didn’t get mentioned in the list of scrutinized commissioner campaign sign thieves. If this is the kind of scrutiny that commissioners will undergo while they serve on the board or in any capacity that becomes a target for “journalists” who disagree with them on any one given topic (the scrutiny is wholly based on one topic, then you can’t blame any of them for agreeing with the sign and not even wanting to serve two-terms, much less four-year terms. And you can’t blame any citizens for not wanting to run to serve two-year terms as they are, or even a one-year term on a committee, if the “scrutiny” is going to be as wild and biased as it has been lately.